Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood chief urges Jihad for Jerusalem

The supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, from which Egypt’s President Mohammed Mursi emanated, called on Thursday for a jihad (holy war) to liberate Jerusalem from Israeli rule.

“Jerusalem is Islamic ... and nobody is entitled to make concessions” on the Holy City, said Sheikh Mohammed Badie in his weekly message to supporters.

“The jihad for the recovery of Jerusalem is a duty for all Muslims,” he said, stressing that the liberation of the Holy City “will not be done through negotiations or at the United Nations.”

Israel, which signed a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979, has watched with concern as Islamists were catapulted to the forefront of politics following a popular uprising that toppled president Hosni Mubarak last year.

Mursi has repeatedly said he would respect international treaties signed by Cairo. But his former movement has also said there is room to revise the accords, without objecting to them in principle.

A prominent Egyptian cleric said at a presidential campaign rally in June that Jerusalem should become the capital of Egypt, in case Musri wins the elections.

“Our capital shall not be Cairo, Mecca or Medina. It shall be Jerusalem with God’s will. Our chants shall be: ‘millions of martyrs will march towards Jerusalem’,” prominent cleric Safwat Hagazy said, according to the video aired by Egypt’s religious Annas TV.

The video went viral after being posted on YouTube.

“The United States of the Arabs will be restored on the hands of that man [Mursi] and his supporters. The capital of the [Muslim] Caliphate will be Jerusalem with God’s will,” Hegazy said, as the crowds cheered, waving the Egyptian flags along with the flags of the Islamist Hamas group, which rules the Gaza Strip.

“Tomorrow Mursi will liberate Gaza,” the crowds chanted.

“Yes, we will either pray in Jerusalem or we will be martyred there,” Hegazy said.